SURVEY RESPONDENTS FEEL GOOD ABOUT HOW OREGON IS RUN

SALEM, Ore. (AP) -- Most Oregonians feel good about how their state is run,
according to a phone survey released today by the Oregon Progress Board and
the state Office of Economic Analysis.

Seventy-six percent say the state does a good or somewhat good job
providing government services; two-thirds say the state is doing a good or
somewhat good job providing K-12 education; and 62 percent say the state is
good or somewhat good at managing growth and preventing sprawl.

"The fact that Oregonians feel pretty good about themselves and their
community was the most positive thing for me," said Jeff Tryens, executive
director of the Oregon Progress Board.

The biennial survey of 4,816 households, conducted last year, asked
residents to rate the state's performance in road and bridge maintenance,
education, crime and natural-resource management, among other things.

The results will help state agencies attack problems such as homelessness,
a lack of daycare and other needs.

But no survey would be complete without bad news: The median household
income of those surveyed rose to $37,208 last year from $32,698 in 1996,
but the percentage of families living below the federal poverty level
remained about the same as in 1990.

That's an ominous sign, said Chuck Sheketoff, executive director of the
Oregon Center for Public Policy, a think tank that focuses on poverty
issues. Because thousands more people have moved to Oregon in the past
eight years, the number of poor people has increased.

"Oregon is not winning the war on poverty. Not only have we not reduced the
rate, but we continue to have more people in poverty and all the attendant
social costs," he said.

"Oregon cannot afford to continue to fail to reduce our poverty rates. The
costs in schools, the cost in crime, the cost in child abuse and neglect
are tremendous," Sheketoff said.

Other interesting findings: Sixty percent said the state was doing a good
or somewhat good job of maintaining highways, roads and bridges, down from
67 percent who said the same thing in 1996.

Senate Transportation Committee chairwoman Marylin Shannon, R-Brooks, a
strident critic of the state Department of Transportation, said she didn't
need a survey to tell how people feel.

"I am more upset about the safety of our roads than any other Oregonian,"
she said late Friday. "The most deadly roads in Oregon should be made safer."

And despite talk by Rep. Kevin Mannix, R-Salem, House Judiciary Criminal
Law Committee chairman, of toughening sentences for repeat property crime
offenders, 65 percent of respondents said the state was doing a good job of
controlling crime, up 9 percentage points from 1996. Forty-one percent, an
increase of 2 percentage points from the 1996 survey, said the same thing
about controlling drug use.

Mannix credited the stricter sentencing guidelines for violent crimes
mandated by Measure 11, the referendum voters passed in 1994.

"What this says to me is we've done some good things, and people are
beginning to notice," he said. "It doesn't say we should let up."